The Digital Revolution is the shift from mechanical and analogue technology to digital electronics, which transformed industry, communication and daily life. Its foundations lay in the invention of the transistor, the integrated circuit and the microprocessor, which allowed computers to become smaller, cheaper and more powerful. Personal computers brought computing to homes and offices in the 1980s, and the spread of the internet and the World Wide Web in the 1990s connected people and information globally. Mobile phones, smartphones, digital media and social networks followed. The change has been compared in importance to the Industrial Revolution, and it is sometimes described as the start of the Information Age, with profound effects on work, privacy and politics.
Before and after
- 4 November 1979Iran hostage crisis
- 18 December 1979Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
- from 25 December 1979 to 15 February 1989Soviet-Afghan War
- 1980Establishment of Lake Malawi National Park
- c. 1980sDigital Revolution
- 1980Creation of Ada
- 1980Publication of The Name of the Rose
- 1980Rise of transhumanism
- 1980Founding of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- from 23 May 1949 to 3 October 1990West Germany
- from 7 October 1949 to 3 October 1990East Germany
- from 15 December 1954 to 10 October 2010Netherlands Antilles
- 4 February 1970Origins of Pripyat
- from 2 September 1991 to 1 January 2023Republic of Artsakh
- 19 September 1991Otzi the Iceman is found
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.